I lent some money, but today I only have a photocopy of the document that established the conditions of the loan. Is it enough to get restitution if we end up in front of a judge?
By law (i.e. by article 2719 of Civil Code) the photographic or photostatic copy (i.e. the photocopy) of a document has the same effectiveness as theoriginal if its conformity to the original is certified by a public official or if the conformity is not expressly denied by the person towards whom the document is asserted.
This means that in your case, as the conformity to the original of the copy in his possession has not been attested by a public officialthe effectiveness of the copy document that you possess will be the same effectiveness of the original provided that, if you were forced to go to causethe other party does not deny it, i.e. does not expressly declare it, in the first hearing or in the first response following when the document is produced in court, not to recognize the compliance of the copy to the original or of not recognizing the authenticity of his or her writing subscription.
Following the disclaimer within the process, a procedure (so-called verification) is opened which has the purpose, at the request of the party that intends to use in the process the document disavowed byopponentto verify the authenticity of the document itself or through the exhibition of writings that serve to compare the document in photocopy with other documents referable to the opponent or by requesting the giudice to arrange for the party to write under dictation (even in the presence of a technical consultant).
The procedure verification it closes either by recognizing the authenticity of the document or its non-authenticity.
If instead his opponent in court should not ignore the photocopy document at the first hearing or in the first answer subsequent to the moment in which the document is exhibited in the trial, then the document will have the same by law effectiveness of the original.
Having made this necessary premise, it should be added that:
- il witness it could be useful in the event that your opponent were to ignore the copy of the document you exhibited and the verification procedure (described above) were to have outcome negative for her (however the witness would only be useful if he was able to testify that she actually carried out a loan to the counterparty, when the loan took place and what the agreed conditions of the loan were; if instead the witness was only capable of report that he wrote the document, but that he knew nothing about the loan, i.e. whether it actually took place, how much it amounted to, what the conditions agreed etc., it would be of little or no use);
- the payment receipts (if we mean the receipts of sums that the other party has already returned) are not indispensable in the sense that it is enough for you to say that you want the money back part residual amount of the loan and declare that you have already received in refund a certain sum (counterparty will certainly confirm, I imagine);
- as for the intereststhe law (articles 1815 and 1284 of the Civil Code) establishes that in the event that nothing is said in the agreement in this regard, interest is due to the extent of legal rate current;
- finally, a very important consideration: the agreement you signed does not provide for a term specific for the refund of the sum (write that the refund will take place when the other party has the liquidity necessary in fact is equivalent to not establishing a deadline for repayment); in these cases the law (article 1817 of the Civil Code) establishes that it is the giudice to set the deadline for repayment of the amount. Therefore, to obtain the refund of the part of the amount still due, you will have to do appeal to the judge pursuant to article 1817 of Civil Code requesting that the judge set a date for the repayment of the sum and that the sentence contains the sentence of his counterpart to payment of the residual debt, plus interest at the legal rate, for that same amount data that the judge wishes to establish.
Article taken from the consultancy provided by the lawyer. Angelo Forte
